Monday, March 28, 2016

Only hints: She is a Drow Courtesan, her favorite adornments are gold & rubies (gold dust on ears).Get to writing and fave fun! 'Courtesan' *2016 WillowRaven

At MidSouthCon 34, I was confronted with the fact that I don't do enough personal work. Not only did my son make mention of the fact that he thinks my personal works are better somehow, so did other guest artists I was sharing panels with.

So I started to pay attention a little closer and did notice a slightly larger ratio of visitors to the art room and in the panels stop and look at my personal work a touch longer than my commissioned work. Happily, both sell, so it's not like I'm slacking on my clients, but people can still somehow tell when an image is 'all me'. I can't explain the phenomenon, but apparently it's fairly common.

Yes, everybody must work and my clients and publishers will have to come first. but I'm determined to make it a point to do art just for me, not a commissioned piece, at least once a week. I'm going to be giving myself only one to two days to finish any personal artwork, and if it's not finished by the beginning of the week, it will have to wait until the following weekend.

Related text from my website:

Call for submissions ...

I'm creating a yearbook, of sorts, featuring my personal visions. Plans are to have enough work by November to compile them into a book to offer it here on the website, as well as, at the MidSouthCon, which I attend each year.

I thought it would also be fun to include short stories inspired by each piece. I've had a few 'visual writing prompts' cycling on twitter for the past couple years and many of my author contacts on social media seem to enjoy participating. I post their stories on my blog with links back to their profiles and pages, but this would be a chance for a few of those stories to be actually published in the going-to-be-annual yearbook.

With each new personal vision, I'll post it here to the welcome page and on my blog, alerting my followers that there is a new challenge up. Submissions can be turned in anytime between the time of posting and November 1st. Along with each new posting, there will be a twitter poll where people can vote on their favorite story submissions for each piece. Any visions or editing needed will be approved of by the authors before printing.

The winner for each will be selected according to the poll. The authors will get credited for their stories in the yearbook and given a short bio including links to their other works.